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    To Raise Funding

    April 12, 2021

    1 min read What does it take to Raise Funding? First-time fundraisers make many mistakes. Here’s a list of key points to consider before your next meeting with an investor for your startup. It’s show, not tell. There’s an old saying: If you tell me, it’s an essay. If you show me, it’s a story. To raise funding you have to show, not just tell. Forecasting alone doesn’t close the round. You must demonstrate progress towards it. Never show up to an investor meeting or call without something new in hand to show your growth story. Always talk about a customer and their engagement with your product or team. Show how the team is making things happen. Show how other investors are interested in committing funds.  Show how the product is working and what it is doing for the customer today. You must own it. In raising funding just as in running your business, investors look to see if you own it. Do you own the challenging problems, or do you avoid them? Do you own the core business, or do you delegate it to someone else?  Do you abide by the contracts you sign, or do you try and duck out when it goes against you? Investors are looking at how you run your business to see if you own it. So, in the fundraise, do you own the numbers?  Do you own the investor relationship? Do you own the results you show them after the fundraise? Read more in the TEN Capital eGuide: http://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/due-diligence-and-leading-the-deal/ Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network. TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

    Building Investor Engagement

    September 10, 2020

    2 min read How to Raise Funding Step 2: Building Investor Engagement You have a good list of investors that are interested in your deal, but how do you get investor engagement? You need to introduce your deal to the investors and demonstrate why it’s a good deal, the operative word here being “DEMONSTRATE.” Most startups tell the investor why it’s going to be a good deal; superb product, great team, great market, great future, etc. The key is to SHOW them. Start by highlighting your traction with customers, the experience and ongoing work of the team, and the improvements on the product. Investors see dozens of deals every day. You can stand out by remembering one thing: Everyone promises, few deliver. Every startup has a great future. Every startup promises the moon.  So what does the investor do? Look for evidence of meeting milestones and a sense of momentum behind the deal. Your outreach to the investor is a campaign, not a one-time contact. You must demonstrate that you have traction. The team must be doing great things. The product must be progressing. If you can’t do anything until you have that $500K, then the process will get tough. You have to show you can do things with little or no funding. Use campaign mailers to tell your story. Over the course of several mailers, you need to showcase your deal and how it works. Investors are busy. They don’t have time to read 5000-word emails. They’ll read a half-page, maybe a little more, and that is it. You need to tell your story over a series of emails as we work our way into the busy lives of the investor. Break the information down into smaller pieces and schedule them out so the investor can see your progress regularly. Read more in the TEN Capital eGuide: http://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/how-to-raise-funding-eguide/   Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network.TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

    Building a List of Investor Prospects

    September 3, 2020

    1 min read How to Raise Funding Part 1: Building a List of Investor Prospects (You Need Several Hundred, Not Just a Dozen or So) By now, you probably have your pitch deck and financial projections ready, and your due diligence box (some call it a data room) is coming together. Now it is time to take your deal to a list of investor prospects. The first step in a fundraise is to build a list of potential investors. You’ve to go through your contact list, your LinkedIn connections, and you rack your brain for potential investors in your deal. You’ve done a few Google searches and added a few local angel networks, you know. The list stands at about 15 names. Now what? You know the fundraise is similar to sales; it’s a numbers game. Only a small percent are going to invest, so we need more names. A lot more. You can search Medium and find a few lists online. Some have email addresses; most do not. You start asking around for lists from friends, and they share some with you. Some of the lists are up to date, but many are over a year old. Now what? At TEN Capital, we have over 12,000 investors in our network that you can access. We can introduce your deal to those investors based on their interests, so that you can confidently build your list of solid investor prospects. That doesn’t mean they will write a check for $1M in a few weeks, but now you know who you are targeting, and you can start the work of building a relationship with the investor. Read more in the TEN Capital eGuide: http://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/how-to-raise-funding-eguide/ Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network.TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

    How to Engage the Investor

    September 5, 2018

    2 min read How to Raise Funding Step 6: How to Engage Investors for Calls and Meetings In looking at how to raise funding, a crucial step is to engage investors. We can begin by contacting investors online. After several mailers, you should be able to assess who is engaging with your deal and who is not. For those who are opening your mailer and viewing your deck, you now take them to the next level, which is a conference call and later a meeting. The key to setting up a call with an investor is to offer new information that they cannot get through a mailer. This includes confidential information such as actual client results. Detailed information about your customers is not something that most put in mailers, so investors will appreciate the fact that this is for direct offline communication. Investors are seeking new information about their sector and appreciate sources of information that can inform them. Other sources of information to offer the investor include trends in the industry, challenges in the sector, what to look for in startups, new startups coming up that are investor-worthy, competitive information, and takeaways from a recent conference. As a startup operating in the thick of things, you have access to information that is quite valuable. Read more on the TEN Capital eGuide: http://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/how-to-raise-funding-eguide/ Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network. TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

    Developing Rapport with the Investor

    August 29, 2018

    2 min read How to Raise Funding Step 5: Developing Rapport with the Investor When I ran angel networks using the dinner club model, I had entrepreneurs come in to pitch my investors. Ninety percent of them would go away, and we would never hear from them again. We had no idea what happened to them. About ten percent of them, though, would come back and give us updates and reminders about their deal. By and large, those were the startups that raised funding from the group. One of the key steps when considering how to raise funding is building a rapport with someone. This starts with introductions and awareness and continues with ongoing communication to a level of familiarity. In sales, it takes seven touches to close a deal. So too, does it take seven touches to close an investor. For substantial fundraises, it may take even more. The key here is that you must build a relationship with the investor before the funding, not after. If you already have investors, think about how much you know about them. How long did it take to figure those things out? In most cases, it will be the same with your investor prospects. Read more on the TEN Capital eGuide: http://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/how-to-raise-funding-eguide/ Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network. TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

    Educate the Investor About Your Deal

    August 15, 2018

    2 min read How to Raise Funding Step 3: Educate the Investor About Your Deal They say it takes seven touches to close a sale – so it takes seven touches to close an investor. Some startups pitch to a group of investors, and if they don’t see checkbooks coming out at the end, then in their mind, it’s a failed meeting. I tell the startup, the investor doesn’t yet know if they are interested or not, they’re still trying to figure out what the deal is all about. It takes several updates before the investor gets a sense of the deal and can start making a decision. In the end, the investor makes a decision based on team and traction.   In the introduction, you can talk about the market size, growth rates of the industry, and the promise of a great outcome.  After that first mailer, the investor doesn’t care to hear about the market or growth rates. They only care about one thing – what are you doing to achieve the promise? Your mailers need to showcase the strength of the team and the progress you are making on sales, product, IP, and fundraise. To make your case, you need to include numbers in your deck and updates. It shows you know your business, your market, and your status. I’m amazed at how many startups don’t know their revenue numbers. Come prepared to share those details with the investors in mailers and follow up conference calls.   One tactic I’ve seen used to good effect is going to your investor prospects six months before launching the campaign, telling them that you will start your raise in six months and then asking if you can keep them informed of your progress. This approach gives you six months to educate the investor about your deal and demonstrate progress, so when you are ready to launch your raise, you have a group of educated investors prepared and ready to go. Read more: http://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/education Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network.TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

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